Ah yes, the holidays.
A time for family, love, merriment, and catching up with relatives we seldom see. These conversations with distant loved ones often lead to a litany of uncomfortable questions, awkward silences, and lengthy stories that interest maybe 2 of the 8-15 people in the room. During these interactions, many people will find refuge from intense and strained eye contact in the comfortable, mindless anonymity of the world-wide web via their smartphones. For those of us who have exhausted various social networks, here are a few games to play during the holiday season to provide you with a little shelter in the familial social storm this holiday season.
Recommended for you
- 1. 1010 by GramGames
- 2. Stack by Ketchapp
- 3. Crush the Castle by Armor Games
- 4. Jetpack Joyride by Halfbrick
- 5. Peggle by PopCap
- 6. 2048 by Gabriele Cirulli
The best way to describe this game is “no-pressure Tetris”. You’re given a series of shapes comprised of 1-9 blocks and a blank 10 x 10 grid. Fit the shapes on the grid, fill lines either vertically or horizontally to clear the row, and keep going until the game gives you a shape that cannot be placed on the board. It’s relaxing, relatively easy, and can get addicting (especially if you know others who play). What’s better is that closing the app doesn’t reset the board, so on the off-chance family does catch your attention, you can always pick it up where you left off! On a side note, playing this game at night in bed, with your phone on “Night Shift” will guarantee sleep in 7 minutes or less!
The controls and purpose are simple. Tap with one finger to stop the moving block so that it stops exactly on top of the base. If you’re not exact the block gets cut wherever it isn’t on the base. The block gets smaller and smaller until all that’s left misses the base completely. It’s only somewhat stressful, but a long string of perfect taps offers the perfect amount of relaxing satisfaction. Playing it without audio (I mean, you don’t really want to be completely obvious the family, right?) will offer something of a disadvantage to people who rely on audio patterns, but it doesn’t make the game completely impossible. Simple, fun, and not so encapsulating that you can still find good interjection points to convince Uncle Joe that you care about the weird guy he works with in the office.
If you’re looking for a rather lengthy endeavor which even includes evolving gameplay mechanic, this is the one for you. Offering 3 maps, 100+ castles, more than 15 potential weapons, and medieval trebuchet awesomeness, Crush the Castle is the fun game of controlling a trebuchet and finding the perfect angle with which to rain death down upon your enemies. Crush the Castle offers hours of fun, which will be good to distract from the hour-long tale of the local church pot-luck Aunt Cindy had to organize. Hint-
You begin as Barry, a thief attempting to steal a jetpack from a laboratory and use it to escape the lab. Tapping allows Barry to fly on the jetpack, giving him the ability to dodge incoming security measures, such as lasers and electric strips. On top of trying to get as far out of the lab as you can despite increasing speed and security, you’re also given certain objectives to complete along the way, such as dodging five electric strips, or using a particular power-up five times. The game is fun, and the art style helps it remain relatively stress free. Getting some real distance in might be challenging if you don’t have the attention to spare, as the screen does begin to move pretty quickly. Just make sure you don’t get caught by mom- she’ll have to give you “the stare”.
There have been many different versions and adaptations of Peggle, and every single one of them are fantastic. Picking a character allows you to use a special ability in your quest to clear all of the orange pegs (and the blue ones if you’re skilled enough) in a Plinko/Breakout mash-up wonderfully drawn, beautifully orchestrated, and requiring just enough strategy to be extremely satisfying. The speed of the game is completely dependent on how much focus you have to spare on it, from a full ignoring of your little brothers to a slight disinterest in your dad’s turkey-trouble. It’s a slow aim and click that somehow finds a way to breed self-competition at an alarming rate. Peggle is basic PC gaming genius and that it even exists on mobile platforms is nothing short of a miracle. Whether one is seeking competition or mindless finger movement, Peggle can be thoroughly enjoyed.
Whether you know the age old trick to achieving 2048 and beyond with little to no effort or you’re going into this confused on the purpose of the game, it has the same boredom satisfaction spectrum as Peggle, but the lack of genuinely impressive art and apparent demand of genuine focus (despite not really being true) take it down a notch on the list.
*Honorable Mention:
Rings by Kamil Kucma
This game is fun and it’s built on a really solid platform, and while it seems mindless, the basic art style isn’t interesting enough to prevent the player from getting frustrated after a series of short games. It feels satisfying to build a combo, but not so much so that I focus on it, and lack of focusing satisfaction is deadly on the mobile platform.
Have a Happy Holiday!
